Bethel Heights Vineyard

In 1977 three families became one. Twin brothers Ted and Terry Casteel, their wives Pat Dudley and Marilyn Webb, and Pat’s sister Barbara Dudley left academic careers to buy an abandoned walnut grove on a south-facing slope in the Eola-Amity Hills. The property had been advertised as suitable for a vineyard. It took a determined suspension of disbelief to see it that way.

They cleared it, staked out the rows, and planted roughly fourteen acres of Pinot Noir, expanding to the original fifty-acre parcel by 1979. For the first twenty years Ted managed the vineyard and Terry made the wine, while Pat and Marilyn handled marketing and the business. The first estate wines came in 1984, when they finally built a winery on the property. The Eola-Amity Hills AVA wouldn’t exist for another three decades.

The original 1977 to 1979 plantings still stand, and they’re among the last surviving own-rooted Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines anywhere in the world — a rarity since phylloxera forced nearly everyone onto grafted rootstock.

The estate now covers 103 acres with 59 under vine, between 480 and 620 feet, split across two soil types: volcanic Jory and Nekia on the upper slopes, marine sedimentary Woodburn below. Marine winds funnel through the Eola Hills every evening — the Aeolian winds that gave the hills their name — cooling the fruit through hot summer nights.

Five cousins grew up in these vineyards, and the second generation now runs it. Ben Casteel, Terry and Marilyn’s son, became winemaker in 2005 after his father called to discuss what would happen after retirement. Mimi Casteel, daughter of Ted and Pat and a regenerative viticulture figure in her own right, stepped in as viticulturist in 2025 when her father retired. Jessie Casteel, Jon Casteel, and DeeDee Dudley sit on the board. The third generation is ten people strong.

Ben’s line about it: the closer the winegrower’s hands are to the wines and the vines, the clearer the voice of the place.